Trump: A religious man or bigot?

By Anonymous

By Caleb Newman


    In America, politics has a religious angle to it even though there is separation of church and state. This has been the case since 1967 as Bellah has observed in his essay (1967:3). The photo above taken in 2020 shows then-President Donald Trump holding up a bible in front of the church right outside the White House. Previously, police had cleared people protesting the death of George Floyd and saying that Black lives matter. Trump was sending a signal to one of the Republican party’s most loyal support groups: Evangelicals. By holding up a bible, Trump was standing in solidarity with them by making a statement that the church was more important than the protestors. With the same action, however, Trump also moved protests supporting the Black Lives Matter away from the church. The bible, a totemic principle, came to represent a political angle, when in reality the bible is supposed to be apolitical. The bible would not support Trump's actions towards the protestors due to the underlying unjust values that the President had by dismissing calls for equal justice. In short, Trump used the bible for political gains, rather than for moral reasons. This would not surprise Bellah as he acknowledges that that civil religion has not always been used for the most just causes (1967:14), such as this case. 

    In using the bible for political gains, Trump made it clear that he supports a certain group of people. With the same action, however, Trump was also able to exclude people.


Sources

Bellah, George. 1967. “Civil Religion in America.” Daedalus 96(1): 1-21.

Tom, Brenner. June 1, 2020. “File Photo.” From Reuters. Retrieved March 24, 2022 

(https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-protests-church-idUSKBN23A27W)

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